TELEGRAM TO N. A. ANISIMOV

Written:Written on August 9, 1918Published:First published in 1938 inKrasny ArkhivNo. 4–5.

      Printed from the original.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,[1976],

      Moscow,Volume 35,

      page348.Translated:Andrew RothsteinTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive.You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

AnisimovAstrakhan

Thesituation in Baku is still not clear to me.

Whois in power?

Whereis Shahumyan?

Inquireof Stalin, and act in the light of all the
circumstances; you know that I have complete confidence in
Shahumyan. The situation cannot be understood from here, and
there is no possibility of giving speedy
help.[1]

[1]OnJuly 31, 1918 external pressure and various internal factors
brought about the temporary collapse of Soviet power in Baku.
On August 1, the Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and
Dashnaks organised a counter-revolutionary government known as the
Dictatorship of the Central Caspian Area. Agents of the Entente,
they immediately sent their representatives to Iran to fetch the
British, and on August 4 a British force landed in Baku.

Inthese critical days the Baku Communists were with the
masses, explaining the situation and exposing the treacherous policy
of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and Dashnaks; but
the Baku Communists lacked the strength and opportunity to
bring about any fundamental change in the political situation.
On August 12, a Communist conference took the decision to
withdraw temporarily to Astrakhan, taking as many arms and as much
equipment as possible. A group of Communists was appointed to
carry on Party work in Baku.

Theplan of evacuation to Astrakhan did not succeed and the
leaders of Soviet power in Baku were arrested.

Inthe middle of September 1918 the Turkish command launched
an offensive on Baku. The troops of the Dictatorship of the
Central Caspian Area and the British force withdrew, and on the
morning of September 15 Turkish troops and Mussavatists entered
the city. The previous day a group of Communists had managed to
get the Commissars and other Bolsheviks out of prison. They
escaped from the city aboard the steamerTurkmen, but on September 
17 the crew, which had counter-revolutionary leanings, brought the
ship into Krasnovodsk port, where the Socialist-Revolutionaries,
Mensheviks and British interventionists were in command. All
the members of the Baku Council of People’s Commissars and other
Party workers were immediately arrested. On the night of
September 19, 1918, twenty-six leaders of the Baku Commune, who
have since become known in history as the twenty-six Baku
Commissars (S. G. Shahumyan, P. A. Japaridze, M. A. Azizbekov,
I. T. Fioletov, Y. D. Zevin, G. N. Korganov, M. G. Vezirov and
others), were brutally murdered in the Transcaspian desert by the
British interventionists with the direct participation of the
Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks.